The Toronto Board of Trade released a discussion paper and website today on revenue tools to build transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton region today. I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing yet but a couple things stand out to me. One, that a group that represents business calling for major new taxes shows just how bad things have become. It's no secret that the GTA has the longest commute times in North America today, and the business community appears to recognize that this is a significant competitive disadvantage for Toronto for business, not to mention its impact on quality of life for everyone. Two, the proposals are bold: a sales tax, gas tax, parking fee and road tolls. The report acknowledges the political difficulties of such proposals but also the fact that, to build on the scale we need to, and to compensate for the dearth of action in recent decades, we will need significant revenues. This isn't target date 2040 stuff, it's fire up an army of bulldozers and tunnelling machines now. Finally, I find it interesting that today, even the business community is not calling for the construction of more roads, seeming to intuit the futility of such an exercise to meaningfully alleviate congestion in a region like Toronto.

It will be interesting to see if the contents of this report portend what the Province, through Metrolinx, will ultimately recommend come June. Premier Wynne, from her statements, seems to be somewhat open to new revenue tools. This, of course, will be subject to the usual political machinations, as we run up to a potential election later this year. I can't imagine, however, that the opposition have any other ideas of how to build transit in the GTA, and understand the long-term opportunity costs of a "no new taxes" mantra in such a debate. We have only to look back over the last few decades to see that.

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Hi! My name is Tom Broen and I've started this site to further my interest and begin a conversation on the subject of public infrastructure as a social catalyst. Please check out any of the resources on here and feel free to join the discussion.